SALT.


Held fast against the harbour wall
With heart and voice alight with tale,
Two figures braced to weather storm
Of memories that live in sail.

Freebooters clamber off the tongue
To hoist the colours in the eye.
Young witness to dream’s ebbing tide,
Senescent pleach of ‘Full and Bye’.

Pipe’s cradled bowl a Merlin’s fire,
Stem’s cutlass holds marauding foe.
Now, race aloft to reef the Main
To bring about before the blow.

Free now to strive against the wind
For Horn’s relentless punishment,
Then follow Humboldt’s warmer wake
Or ghost of Bounty’s miscreant.

Soft pearl the ocean, mackerel sky
With Pitcairn, Easter all alee,
Aye, Morgan’s treasure may be nigh
Along the coast of ‘High Barbaree’

Long voyage though, now takes its toll
With hunger rife and water spent,
And Bounty’s Bligh now starts to stir
Long rumblings from young malcontent.

Young hand vibrates the ancient sleeve
That sweeps expansive o’er bended knee
And voyage ends when young voice cries
“C’mon Gran’dad it’s time for tea.


Reg Kear © Australia 1994.